rambling about the web

The Internet. It’s like the final frontier, but for pictures of cats, other people’s lunches and memes. Or, at least it used to be. I feel like all this Russian stuff has really cost us our innocence, we the free people of the web. I find myself sending pictures of cats to random friends, just to avoid all the angry news and “news” on social media. I miss that golden era of oversharing.

It was inevitable that the Internet would grow up. It had to. All things, even Tubes, grow and change. Otherwise they stagnate and die. As much as it pained me to see how we found our collective online maturity, I think it will ultimately give us something much better.

Some Internet-Themed Ramblings

I didn’t really feel like writing about writing today, so instead I’m writing about the place we go to do the writing thing. I mean, who uses a non-cloud-based word processor these days? MONSTERS?! I never could remember to save regularly on local WPs, the Cloud is my best freaking friend.

“Oh, you did the thing, but the power went out before your glorious lede was saved? I gotcha, pal.”

So Cloud. Much Wow.

I’ve been an Internet denizen since 1994, when we first got a text-based dial-up version of the Internet in my hometown. We did it with money from a big grant, though being many years ago, my memory sort of doesn’t remember the circumstances. But we had Internet. For the first time.

And the really neat thing about the Internet and my hometown and 1994 is that a community that was, in many ways, completely isolated from the bulk of the world, suddenly was exposed to new ideas and different people and experiences it would never have had otherwise.

For me, the Internet meant freedom of thought. A chance to be more.

For my home in the Ozarks, it meant a cultural upset. It meant thoughts that might disrupt our way of life spread rapidly. It meant that we would largely assimilate into modern American culture. So, it was good and bad.

But, from those humble text-based beginnings sprang this amazing tool that everyone uses to connect to friends, family, ideas and experiences. It’s just normal now. Having a computer in your pocket is what you do. Having a best friend or significant other thousands of miles away is no big deal.

My Predicts for the Future Internet

Having spent all of my formative years engaging with the Internet from devices that ran the gamut from desktop computers to Pocket PCs (sort of like an early smartphone, but without calling capabilities) to Blackberries and Smartphones, I feel like I’m a good authority on where this thing has been and where it’s headed. This year has been rough for all of us, but I think we’re about to see a turnaround. So, without further hesitation, my predictions for the Internet’s near future:

Social media will revert to photos of cheese and cats. Hey, I love me some food porn and cat pictures. I think we all do, deep down. Social media was fun for a long time because of those deeply personal things we’d share, even when we didn’t think it was all that impressive. When we give bits of ourselves freely to our friends, it’s an incredible gift that makes a huge impact.

Google will get better at filtering out the trash. If you’ve been in the digital marketing world for any amount of time, you’ve heard of things like search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine results page (SERP). Google has all kinds of algorithms that determine just where your site (or any site) will appear in the SERPs. The problem there for a bit was that unreliable news sources were getting ranked because of a combination of user shares and clicks on social media and some sneaky sneaker gaming the system. Google has to step up and become a bit of a parental figure to help quash any future issues like this. I believe it can and that it will.

Teenagers will grow up and rejoin Facebook. When I wear my marketing hat, I see lots of articles written by hand-wringers saying that teenagers are jumping ship from Facebook. Of course they are, they’re rebelling. In this new and crazy digital world, even leaving your parents’ social network might be some kind of rite of passage. Give the kids the room to be all SnapChatty or whatever they’re into these days. Ultimately, they’re going to reappear on the social networks where their family is because that’s what you do now. Their jumping ship today doesn’t mean anything. Worry when Millennials and Boomers start leaving in droves.

Echo chambers will stop echoing. It was scary for everyone that Donald Trump was elected president (I mean, besides the Russians). So much so that many people began to break away from their social circles to immerse themselves in private groups that were basically echo chambers. These were very polarizing, causing so many people to turn on people who were once friends and allies. But slowly, the echo chambers started to eat their own because they weren’t using the language perfectly or they weren’t able to maintain all aspects of their lives in an extreme way. I think, I really feel, that we’ll see these echo chambers start to break down for the most part (there will always be some around) and more people re-establish their old connections.

MOAR advertising opportunities. Last, but far from least, I see more ads in our future. Lots of kinds of ads, stuff we’ve not even conceived yet. Banner ads, social media ads, Google ads, YouTube ads, ads about ads, we’ll have them all! But with so many ads comes a high level of annoyance. That, I believe is where we’re going to be really putting in the effort next. We know digital ads work, but we have to find ways to deliver them that are better. Honestly, we need both better ads and a more pleasing way to push them to shoppers. With a little effort, ad modules will get better and more discreet. Less annoying ads make the whole industry happier.

Well, that’s all I have for now. I may come back later and do Internet predictions number two, but only if it’s a rainy day and I feel more like napping than doing real work.